My Dearest Pete...

Has it been twenty-six years? That seems so long. How many lifetimes ago? But I can see your face still today. The anger, the pain. I can hear you begging and pleading me not to go with him. To give us, a real chance. To run away with you back to Maine. We would take my son. You already loved him like your own. That I knew you cared for him better than his own father.

But I shook my head. I turned around and walked away, through the tears I kept walking, though my heart was breaking, leaving a small piece with you there in Charleston, I kept going. It was the right thing I told myself. I was a married woman. My husband and I had a baby together. It was just an affair, nothing more. You would get over me. You would find someone new. You would be happier than I could ever make you.

But the truth is that I have never gotten over you. Three failed relationships, single motherhood, careers. Nothing ever filled the hole in my heart, that missing piece of my soul that I left with you that day. Walking away from what we had is something that I have regretted every day for the rest of my life.

No one had ever touched me the way you could. No one has ever sent my heart racing with a simple look the way you did. It has never taken flight like the eagles simply because I was in the same room with someone. I have never felt as safe and as protected, as cherished as I did in your arms. No one has ever filled my body and my heart to overflowing the way you did.

Others may pass judgment on what we did that afternoon in that grubby hotel room. Yes, I was a married woman. Yes, I lied to my husband to steal those precious couple of hours with you. But it was so worth it. With my dying breath, I fear it will be your face I see as I straddled your hips, drawing your hard cock against my open body and sinking into the heaven that was you, my love.

I have often wondered what life with you would have been like. Could we have maintained that level of heat and desire that sparked instantly between us? A quarter of a century later would you still look at me with the same enthralling sense of awe and wonder? Could that kind of love survived all that I know love throws at it?

Oh, how I wish I knew. How I wish I had listened to you that day. Had the courage to take the path less travelled. Well, in this world, maybe not so less travelled, but certainly still less acceptable. In my darkest moments, I fear that I will never again find what we shared that summer.

That by letting you go, by hurting you the way that I know I did, I have incurred some cosmic penalty. I have brought down upon my head the wrath of Aphrodite. She is angry with me for wasting one of Cupid's precious arrows. For turning my back upon, and squandering such a precious gift.

Did I seal my karmic fate that day when I turned and walked away from you? Did I receive a life sentence to walk this earth alone? To only taste briefly the delicacy of true love and for all time to yearn for its sweet taste? Everything since has left me wanting. Under-spiced. Uncooked. Ill-prepared.

And if I have? I will not cheapen the pain that I caused you that day by telling you that I have paid a high-price. I would never minimize your sorrow by begging and pleading for another chance, for I do not deserve one. I accept that. My folly, throwing away such a precious gift as your love deserves whatever punishment that Cupid, Aphrodite and Fate heap upon me.

But this I will say, my greatest hope from the bottom of my heart is that you did not close yourself off. That you found another, more worthy of that precious gift, with the courage to grab onto it and never let you go. I hope that every single moment of the past quarter century has been filled for you with laughter, happiness and love. Because that is what you deserve, what I wish I had had the courage to give you.

You are an amazing man and I shall never forget you, but my other hope is that not once over the past twenty-five years have you ever thought of me and wondered what if. I hope you do not think of me at all. That your heart is so full of her and your family that there is no room for regrets or doubts.

But for me, I return often to that seedy hotel room. To remember. To wish. To regret. And at night when I close my eyes and sleep will not come, I think of you...and touch myself...as you did that day. For moment I find happiness in your arms once more. Only to awaken to the reality of a world without you. Without love.

It has taken me twenty-five years to write this letter. To say good-bye. To beg for what I do not deserve...your forgiveness. Can you give me that final gift of love? Can you forgive that confused young woman with the weight of the world upon her shoulders? She made the wrong choice and now she must learn to live with it. But worse yet, she must learn to live without you. Without your touch, your caress, your love...and your loving.

Good-bye my perfect lover. Good-bye my dear friend. Good-bye my romantic hero of every story that I have ever written or ever will. Good-bye my true-love. Good-bye my soul mate. May you live in the glow of love and happiness that has escaped me.